Intimidation and Violent Attack on lawyers and Interference in their Work

After Mr. Chen was put under house arrest in September 2005, several times lawyers representing Chen attempted to meet him, and to discuss with the authorities the lifting of Chen’s house arrest. On October 4, 2005, law lecturer Xu Zhiyong and lawyers Li Fangping and Li Subin attempted to visit Chen at his home and negotiate with local officials to have his house arrest lifted. The lawyers were stopped on their way to the house: Chen reportedly managed to leave his house and speak with them briefly, but was then forcibly taken back to the house. The lawyers then met briefly with local authorities. After the meeting they tried once more to go to Chen’s house, but they were stopped on the way and reportedly beaten up by a 30-strong group. They were then taken to a police station where they were reportedly interrogated until the next day, and told that the case now involved "state secrets". The following day they were escorted back to Beijing.

After Mr. Chen was taken by police to the Yinan County Detention Center in March, on June 27, four lawyers and activists including Beijing-based AIDS activist Hu Jia also went to Linyi to visit Chen’s family. As they entered Chen's village, their car was flipped over by unidentified men. The men also snatched Li Jinsong's camera in front of four policemen, who turned a blind eye to the violent incident. 

On June 29, a forum in Beijing entitled "A panel discussion concerning the rule of law in China and the development of a healthy atmosphere," organized by lawyers and concerned citizens, was closed down by authorities. 

On July 7, lawyer Li Jinsong received official notification from Yinan County Court that the trial of Chen Guangcheng would be held on July 17, but the date was later changed to July 20 after some negotiation.  On July 9, Li Jinsong, Li Subin, Teng Biao and Zhang Lihui decided to travel from Beijing to Linyi to conduct an investigation and collect evidence. Just before they left, Teng Biao was pressured by authorities from taking part in the trip and his employer, the China University of Political Science and Law, where he holds a teaching post, threatened him with firing him. 

On July 10, three lawyers plus three activists went to Linyi to help collect evidence. One of them, Hu Jia, met Yuan Weijing, Mr. Chen’s wife, on the street, but they were attacked by 30 people led by village committee members. Yuan Weijing was seized by police and taken away in a police car. She was not released until 8 hours later. Police justified their operation by accusing Yuan Weijing of "intentional damage of property" and "organizing a crowd to disrupt traffic."

Around July 17, 2006, Chen Guangcheng’s original court date, several dozen activists and supporters, including a group of local people with disabilities, arrived at Linyi, in an effort to attend the trial.  Police questioned them, turned some of them back, and eventually put several of them, including the AIDS activist Hu Jia, under house arrest when they returned to Beijing.  The court eventually postponed the trial to July 20.  On July 19, one of Chen Guangcheng's lawyers was notified by telephone that Chen's case required "further investigation" and the trial would be further postponed, while Chen Guangcheng remained in detention without trial.

On August 15, the Yinan County People’s Court in Shandong Province told lawyers that the trial was rescheduled for August 18.  Mr. Chen's lawyers Li Jinsong, Zhang Lihui, Xu Zhiyong (a non-lawyer, but acting as citizen representative), and Teng Biao, as well as another lawyer Li Fangping, went to Linyi. Mr. Li and Mr. Zhang prepared a no-guilt defense in court.  The lawyers came under a great deal of pressure from authorities, directly or indirectly, to drop this case. 

On August 17, the eve of the rescheduled trial, the lawyers, Zhang Lihui, Li Fangping, and the legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, were detained by Yinan police after unidentified men apprehended them, accusing them of “picking pockets” in the streets of Yinan County around 7pm. Mr. Zhang and Mr. Li were released around 10pm, but Mr. Xu remained in detention until the trial was over the next day. Lawyer Li Jinsong had left them at about 6pm and was on his way back to Beijing.  He then decided to stay in case the three were not released.

Meanwhile, activists in Shandong and Beijing were called on the phone or visited by state security, who warned them of severe consequences if they tried to go to Linyi.  A number of them were put under house arrest or surveillance.  On August 15, the Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng was arrested in Shandong where he was visiting his sister.  All contact with Mr. Gao and his family members was cut off.  Mr. Gao went to Linyi in late July to show support for Mr. Chen.  The AIDS activist Hu Jia, a supporter of Mr. Chen, has been under house arrest since August 17. 

Before the retrial at the Yinan court in November 2006, Mr. Chen’s lawyers Li Jinsong and Li Fangping had traveled to his village, Gushidong Village, to interview witnesses and collect evidence.  Police stopped them at the outskirts of the village.  While they were allowed to meet with Mr. Chen’s wife and mother, they were unable to meet with other key witnesses, including three villagers who were released from detention, where, as they told the lawyers, they were tortured to sign incriminating testimonies against Mr. Chen - records of interrogation. The lawyers waited outside the village and tried to negotiate with the police, without success. 

Dr. Teng Biao, also a lawyer and a member of the defense team, was denied permission to attend the retrial when he applied beforehand. In the morning of the 27^th, he was abducted and detained for five hours in order to prevent him from attending the trial.  During the detention, he was roughly handled. Six or seven policemen pushed him to the ground, pinned him down, searched him, and grabbed his cell phone.  They searched his bags and his computer, and interrogated him.  They never produced any ID nor any detention order. They never told him the cause of his detention.

While Mr. Chen’s wife, mother, and at least one brother were allowed to attend the trial, no one else is allowed into the courtroom at the retrial.

On December 27, Chen Guangcheng’s lawyers, Li Fangping and Li Jinsong, who were traveling in a bus to Linyi to meet their client to discuss his second appeal, were attacked by unidentified men who pulled the bus over.  Lawyer Li Fangping was hit in the head by metal sticks, with blood gushing all over his face.  Lawyer Li Jinsong has swollen bruises on his left eye and left arm.  Li Fangping has received emergency care. Initial diagnosis shows that he suffers from a 3cm-long wound on his head, but x-ray does not show any fracture on the skull.  

The lawyers believe that the attack was organized and coordinated by local authorities in an effort to intimidate them and retaliate against them for suing the Linyi police bureau for illegal handling the Chen Guangcheng case.

Circumstances raise strong suspicion that local authorities had arranged the lawyers’ trip.  One judge handling Chen Guangcheng’s appeal had telephoned the lawyers to “convey” the “request by Chen Guangcheng to meet the lawyers” at the Yinan county detention center.” The lawyers decided immediately to go and told the judge their travel schedule.  They left Beijing around 7:30pm on the 26^th and they were riding in an overnight bus from Beijing to Linyi on the highway when they were assaulted. 

After the lawyers boarded the bus, a woman in bus-security guard’s uniform received them and arranged for Li Jinsong and Li Fangping to sit in seats next to the front door, and next to her own seat.  Around 4am on the 27^th, when the bus entered Linyi, the woman guard woke up Li Jingsong.  Soon, two cars without license plats stopped the bus, pulled it over.  8 men stepped out of the cars. They demanded the driver to open the door and threatened to break the windows.  When they came on the bus, the woman guard immediately pointed Li Jinsong accusing him for “sexual harassment.” The men dragged Li Jinsong off the bus and hit him violently with metal sticks.  Li Fangping went off the bus trying to stop the attack and the men attacked him as well. After about 5 minutes’ beating, the hit-men and the woman drove away. The lawyers called the police, who never showed up.  The bus driver, when asked, said he did not know the woman, who had borrowed the bus-security uniform from the driver to “keep warm.”   

The lawyers have decided not to proceed to Yinan without police escort. Mr. Chen had dictated his appeal paper on December 1 after the local court reached the same verdict at a re-trial ordered by the appeal court.  Li Jinsong handed in the appeal paper to the appeal court, the Linyi Municipal Court, on December 8.   He also visited Mr. Chen at the Yinan detention center that day. On December 6, the lawyers filed administrative lawsuits and civil lawsuits against the Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau including its chief Liu Jie and other government bodies. The lawsuits papers were also submitted to the Linyi court on December 8.  The lawsuits against local authorities may be the direct motive behind today’s attack.  It is unclear whether Chen Guangcheng had actually requested the meeting with his lawyers. 

Abuse and Detention of the Defendant’s Wife and other Family Members

Since September 2005, Mr. Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, has also been prevented from leaving the house or followed around without a detention order.  She was beaten when she came out to greet visitors on December 27, 2005. 

After a brief relaxation, Ms. Yuan was detained and put under residential surveillance again the day after Chen’s retrial on November 27, 2006.  On November 28, lawyers and witnesses, including Ms. Yuan went to the courthouse to review and sign court records of their testimonies. Around 12 noon, Ms. Yuan was detained by Yinan County Public Security Bureau in front of the lawyers.  Police produced a paper authorizing “detention for questioning.” Her 1-year-old enfant was also taken in, who was later sent back to their home villager. Eight hours later, Ms. Yuan was dragged out of a police car and thrown on the road side outside her village.  She was nearly unconscious.  Until the next day, she did not talk. She was unresponsive, only uncontrollably sobbing.  She was sent to a hospital in the neighboring county, Mengyin County Menglianggu Hospital, where doctors order her to stay for treatment and observation, where she is still recovering. About 20 policemen watched her at the hospital.  Doctors said that she was severely traumatized, which caused headache, tightening chest, and stomach spasm.  Later, after she began talking again, she recalled that police very roughly handled her and verbally abused her.  Before they threw her outside the village, they had left her on the ground for two hours after she was exhausted by the abuses.

On December 1, 2006, Ms. Yuan was prevented from attending the court’s announcement of the verdict of the retrial.  She was detained by more than 30 policemen in the hospital where she is recovering from trauma caused by police abuse. Chen Guangcheng’s mother was stopped outside the courtroom today by police, who cited her role as a witness.  Only Mr. Chen’s older brother Chen Guangfu was present when the local court read its verdict.

During her detention around November 28, 2006, police also issued an order to authorize putting Ms. Yuan under “residential surveillance” (jian shi ju zhu). The order gives the cause as “on suspicion for ‘intentional obstruction of traffic’ and ‘inciting to destruct property’.” Chinese law allows a maximum of six months for residential surveillance. Ms. Yuan had been under surveillance or house arrest for 15 months without any legal order.

Cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment

In addition to the above documentation of violence against lawyers, abuses and inhumane treatment of Mr. Chen Guangcheng and his family members, we also documented torture of witnesses to force confession.

On August 18, the three detained farmers, Chen Guangdong, Chen Guanghe, and Chen Gengjiang, from Chen Guangcheng’s village, who faced the same charges as Chen, were also tried behind closed doors and sentenced to seven months in jail, with a postponement of one year.  They were then released with a postponement of serving their 7-month sentences in one year.  According to one family member, they were tortured until they were forced to confess that they were “incited by Chen Guangcheng and his wife” to smash police cars.

On September 8, one witness, Chen Guangyu, who was detained on March 11, 2006, tried and sentenced, and is now released on bail, with a postponed seven-month imprisonment pending, talked on the phone to Chen Guangcheng’s lawyers.  He said he was tortured during detention to force him to confess guilt and to testify against Chen Guangcheng.  “After I was detained on March 11, I was tied to a chair for five days and subjected to round-the-clock interrogation.   I only said a few sentences, but they put down long paragraphs twisting my words.  I was too tired to read what they wrote down when they made me sign the interrogation records.”

On September 10, another witness, Chen Guangjun, who was also detained on March 11, 2006, and also sentenced to a postponed seven-month imprisonment, sent a fax to Chen Guangcheng’s lawyers.  In the fax he wrote that after he was detained on March 11, he was chained to a chair and interrogated for five days.  During the five days, police interrogators didn’t let him sleep.  They took two-person shifts.  For five days, they deprived him of food and water and they did not allow him to use the toilet, until he was forced to say that Chen Guangcheng took the lead to call for villagers to block traffic on March 11.  Chen Guangjun also said that he knew Chen Guangcheng was innocent.  He said, many villagers know this, but no one dares to testify.

When the lawyers Li Jinsong and Li Fangping visited Chen Guangcheng on January 15, they found Mr. Chen pale and frail, showing signs of malnourishment.   Mr. Chen told them that he had requested permission to purchase more nutritional food with his own money, but his repeated requests had been ignored.  Everyday, the prison served meager thin soup and flat bread.  Mr. Chen also told lawyers that he had requested a blanket to protect him from the cold winter in the damp cell.  It took a long time before prison guard brought him a tattered filthy blanket, which was fully covered by dusts.   So far the lawyers’ request for bailing out Mr. Chen to serve his sentence outside prison on basis of medical (handicap) reasons has so far not got any response from the court.

On January 25, 2007, the first visitation date after the higher court upheld the verdict on Chen Guangcheng, family members were turned back from the detention center where Mr. Chen is imprisoned.  They were told that Mr. Chen’s case one more procedure 

Conclusion

We thereby request your offices to look into these allegations of (1) arbitrary arrest and detention, (2) torture, (3) interference with lawyers’ independence, and (4) persecution of human rights defenders, by seeking a satisfactory account from the government of its handling of the case of Chen Guangcheng.

VI. Full name and address of the person(s) submitting the information (telephone and fax number, if possible) 

(Names and contacts of Chinese citizens submitting this communiqué, omitted here.)

CRD* helped with the preparation of this communiqué

* The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CRD) assisted in preparing this communiqué.  CRD is a network of activists and groups working toward advancing human rights in the PRC. Its objective is to build NGO capacity, to monitor government adherence to its international and constitutional obligations and to aid victims of rights abuses and assist them in seeking redress.    CRD encourages efforts to achieve these objectives through democratization and rule of law reform.  CRD activities include consultation, dissemination of information, building international solidarity, supporting a program of small grants to those working in China, research assistance, and other services.

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